


Every Fic I Never Finished

by orphan_account



Category: High School Musical, Hold Me Closer Necromancer, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4266306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Literally, every fic I never finished. Includes: High School Musical frikey notfic!, danger days frerard, high school play au ferard and a Hold Me Closer Necromancer au ferard. It will be good. You should read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hold Me Closer Necromancer au frerard

**Author's Note:**

> I may finish these fics and post them separately, so please, if you want to use an idea/adopt the fic message me before doing so!

**God Has a Twisted Sense of Humor**

Gerard’s dreams as a child do not include him working at a really shitty fast food joint at the very edge of an equally shitty strip mall. Coincidentally enough, his daydreams also don't include him dropping out of college after two years or being so sad some days that he can't even get out of bed.

However, Gerard’s ideal life does include him seeing Mikey every day, preferably in a band where they would be famous rockstars. One half of this wish seems to have been fulfilled, although Gerard does doubt that his ten year old self meant for it to come true in the way that it had. Working at the Shake Shack, Gerard reasons, is like a twisted fulfillment of his greatest desire. Somewhere, up in heaven, God was laughing his ass off.

In theory the Shake Shack isn't a horrible place to work at. They pay above the minimum wage by three cents and they include smoking breaks, both things that are more important than health insurance or benefits in Gerard's mind. The problem with the Shake Shack is that it's Gerard's third job in a month and his manager is a dick. Seriously. Timothy Thompson is the most egotistical, annoying person that Gerard had ever encountered in all his twenty years.

"Really, Vic," Gerard complains, scrubbing at yet another dish encrusted with children's slobber and leftover food."I don't understand why you put up with him. He's a homophobic, racist, xenophobic narcissistic asshole who has never done a nice thing for another person in his entire life."

Vic looks up from the floor. "I don't," he replies. He pauses from his mopping for a second to look into Gerard's eyes intently, as if he is telling him something incredibly important. "In case you haven't noticed, I am a pansexual, mixed race man. I'm the embodiment of his worst fears. Well, actually, I think I'm a halfway emobdiment because I'm not sure that Timothy knows what pansexual means. Anyways, if I'm nice to him he'll be do busy gloating to notice anything else."

"But-" Gerard frowns, scratching his head. "Isn't that the kind of behavior that pushes the LGBTQ rights movement back a hundred years? You're essentially in the closet all over again."

Vic starts to look a little confused. "I don't think that's really the same thing. Besides, how do you know that what I'm doing isn't actually helping? What if Timothy begins to view me as the son/unpaid assistant that he never had? And at the last moment I reveal that I'm actually half Mexican and sleep with every gender binary that ever exists and Timothy realises the truth at the 11th hour and is overcome with remorse-"

Gerard can already feel a good debate coming on - heated with lots of potential to throw around phrases like ‘social morality’ and ‘fuck off, motherfucker’. He smirks triumphantly - finally a chance to argue after the Whipped Cream Incident! - and stops scrubbing. "Dude. When was the last time that Timothy felt remorse? He probably doesn't even have a heart. And you- you're just turning your back on your fellow-"

Mikey flees the kitchens before Gerard can say anything more and Vic starts screaming something that sounded suspiciously like Single Ladies into his mop. Defeated, Gerard lapses into silence once more.

-

By the time the Shake Shack is finally closed Vic has lost his voice and Mikey looks more tired than usual. Most people can't tell Mikey's individual expressions, which Gerard finds kind of ridiculous.

He'd tried to explain it when he was younger to other people, always unsuccessfully. "It's in his eyebrows- see? And his eyes, they dim a little when he's sad and when he's happy his mouth quirks up a little on the left side," Gerard would always chirp, pointing at Mikey's blank face for proof. "Look right now! Mikes is boreeeed," he'd sing gleefully. But the adults would just shake their heads and pat him on the head, and the kids his age would shout freak until Gerard started to cry. Then they would see Mikey's mad face, followed by Mikey's fist.

For such a skinny fuck he has a nasty right hook.

Anyway, everyone's exhausted because the family at Table 2 had let their kid draw all over the table with colored Sharpies and Terrible Timothy wouldn't let them leave until everything was spotless. Vic had to suck up more than usual to Timothy (apparently he had made a comment about how unusually tan he was earlier that day) and that in itself was emotionally draining. Besides, the mere act of working at the Shake Shack makes Gerard feel like a horrible sellout. It also makes Mikey strategically place community college brochures all over the basement.

Gerard sighs and plods on, head down and hands in his jacket. All he wants to do is go home and watch a horror movie with Mikey, cuddle a little, drink a lot and ignore the nightmares that are always creeping at the corners of his mind. They've been there since he was a kid, shadowy suggestions of people that his medication makes disappear on Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but never Mondays and never on Halloween. Gerard's head is a mess, spinning around, so he doesn't realize someone's watching him until he turns around and there's a teenage girl with brassy highlights staring at him creepily from the corner of the parking lot. Gerard looks around for Mikey and Vic, but they're way ahead of him.

Gerard gulps and looks back at the girl. She's smirking now and- fuck- there's blood on her hands. Deep, ruby red blood running down in rivulets, leeching into the ground. He lets out a pathetic squeak of horror. Her eyes narrow and she smirks. Gerard tries to wave at her (maybe she likes his jeans or something? It's happened before). His hand wobbles in the air pathetically for a few seconds. Gerard sighs and moves to turn around when suddenly the girl is standing right in front of him.

Holy shit. Gerard blinks in shock and surprise. She was standing really far away- all the way on the other side of the lot- but now she's right next to Gerard. Either she's a really fast runner or she just teleported.

Gerard gasps in delight. She totally just teleported! This is awesome enough that he's willing to overlook the blood. He opens his mouth to say something (possibly to ask for her planet of origin) when without a warning she grins, baring two very sharp, white, canines and pounces on him.

She's wearing some kind of dress and high heels- Gerard can feel the point of a stiletto digging into his calf. She clings to him like she's drowning and with a thrum of panic Gerard feels two sharp, small needlelike teeth slide into his neck. Oh god. This is a way more badass death than he deserves.

Death. Death is bad, he realizes, knees giving way as he slumps into her surprisingly strong embrace. He screeches and flails his arms around helplessly for, like, two whole seconds before he gets really, really tired. There's a cool liquid rushing through his veins and he wants nothing more than to fall asleep. His entire neck is starting to feel numb when suddenly the girl shoves him away. With an unceremonious thump Gerard lands squarely on his ass.

"Ew," the girl says with a disgusted look on her face. “You taste gross." Gerard stumbles to his feet, clutching his neck. He can feel his own blood on his fingers, running down his side, which is really cool and makes for a great superhero backstory but at the same time is kind of concerning. To be honest, he's still trying to come to terms with the fact that someone has bitten him in the neck. Gerard frowns. Is the girl a vampire?

"Are you a vampire?" he mumbles blearily. Whatever drug is in his system is really making him sound like an idiot. He mentally berated himself for sounding exactly like Sleepy from Snow White.

"Duh," the girl- _nay_ \- vampire, replies. "I just bit you on the neck. What more proof do you require?"

"Um." Gerard says eloquently. He's starting to feel a little woozy. "Sorry?"

"You should be," the vampire says, rolling her eyes. "You. Taste. Gross. Like, dirt and dead people and shit."

Gerard feels both relieved and vaguely offended. "Shouldn't you like dirt and dead people and shit? Since you're, um, dead?"

Now it's the vampire that looks offended. She draws herself up to her full height (which is shorter than Gerard) and flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Yeah, well, I have standards. And you don't meet them." She begins turn around, probably to go find more people to kill and eat, when Mikey runs from behind Gerard and throws himself dramatically in front of him. "Stay away from my brother!" he screams, throwing a rosary of unknown origins in the vampire's face.

Nothing happens. The vampire looks more pissed as the beads bounce off her forehead and land in a puddle by her feet.

"Dude," she says. "That's, like, the most stupid thing you've ever done. You've just assaulted a Council member."

Mikey's left eyebrow twitches slightly. Gerard edges closer to him, trying to use his larger body mass to protect him from the scary vampire girl. Mikey just shoves Gerard to the side and tilts his head at the vampire. (So much for sibling love, Gerard thinks spitefully).

"Council?" he says, frowning.

"Yeah," she giggles, the noise at odds with the blood and her sharp, pointy teeth. "I know, right? I was, like, totally surprised when I got the seat but it's because I'm the oldest vampire in the tri-state area. Anyway, you two are in trouble. One of you is an unregistered necromancer and the other just assaulted me, totally unprovoked. I'm going to have to file this, you know. And I hate paperwork."

"But you- you just tried to kill me. Unprovoked." The vampire shrugs and goes back to rooting around her small, pink Gucci handbag. She either doesn't notice or doesn't care about the smears of blood she's getting all over the fabric.

"Perks of being a Council member. We can take any human we want, provided we don't leave a mess behind that needs to be cleaned up. I was planning on nabbing all three of you, but you're-" she points at Gerard, "-not human and the tall guy will suffer a way more painful fate at the hands of our court system. And the short guy passed out, like, a while ago so you can probably convince him that he got food poisoning or something. Anyways, here's my business card. Give it to your lawyer, okay?"

Gerard twists around and confirms that yes, Vic is lying on the pavement, clutching his skateboard like it'll protect him from the vampire.

Said vampire sticks a slightly damp, smudged card into Mikey's hands. Gerard peeks over his shoulder and is confronted by thick, expensive hot pink cardstock embossed with the words "Marjorie Burrows". Gerard's stomach turns unpleasantly when he sees that her business is called "Hot Hitwoman- They'll Always See Me Coming!" He looks up to say something (possibly to beg forgiveness on Mikey's behalf) but she's already gone.

"She's probably going to TJ Maxx," Mikey says gloomily, reaching for his backpack. "They're having a sale on Prada knockoffs."

"Gnghh," Vic moans in response. He's starting to stir on the ground, his hands waving at invisible intruders. "What the hell just happened?"

Gerard shifts nervously. His cheeks are starting to get red and his hands are beginning to twitch. He bites his lip nervously and tries to think of an appropriate, non threatening and believable explanation. Gerard's a horrible liar when he's sober.

"A vampire bit Gerard, but then she didn't like how he tasted because he's a necromancer apparently, so I threw a rosary at her and now she's suing us for an unprovoked attack." Mikey says smoothly.

"Well fuck," Vic says before he passes out a second time.

-

**In Which The Hot Hitwoman is Taken Out**

Marjorie is old. She isn't very talented at killing or particularly graceful, but she's undeniably old, which was got her a seat on the Council. Being old, it turns out, is supposed to be indicative of wisdom and the capability to make responsible decisions. Marjorie lacks both, although she does have a fabulous wardrobe and excellent hair.

"Honey," Jamia says flatly, pushing a huge pile of paperwork towards her, "Your highlights look shitty. They may have been popular ten years ago but nobody likes the obvious blonde stripes on your head." Marjorie huffs and grabs the papers from Jamia. Jamia has been jealous of her since, like, the 1960s, when Marjorie seduced her little human toy from under her acrylic nail claws.

"Like I should take advice from someone who's hair is a boring black." Marjorie says scathingly in response. Jamia doesn't appear to be as devastated as Marjorie thought she would be.

"It's cool now," Jamia says with a shrug. "Which you would know if you knew anything about today's fashion."

Marjorie lets out a wordless scream of rage, and grabs a complimentary pen with enough force to tip the entire container over.

"Oh dear," Jamia says, looking bored.

-

Bert is staring at Marjorie. She looks down at her boobs and confirms that yes, her shirt is covering them. Marjorie shrugs and continues filling in the damn forms.

"Unprovoked attack," she mutters, penciling in the description. "Accidental- er- unintended attack on unregistered necro for self defense-" she goes over the unregistered part a few times. Hopefully this will forgive her attacking him in the first place.

Marjorie can feel Bert's eyes boring into the back of her neck. She rolls her eyes and looks up again, only to see that Bert is now sitting right next to her.

"What do you want?" she snaps. The pile of papers she needs to fill out seems to be growing bigger, and she's 78% sure that Jamia has something to do with it. Damn witch. Bitch. Whatever.

“Nothing,” Bert says, grinning his weird, messed up smile. All of his teeth are large and crooked and it makes Marjorie want to cry. She worked for a dentist briefly so she’s seen some pretty fucked up mouths, but nothing like this.

“Right,” she says weakly, trying not to look at him, gathering up her things and dumping them in her purse (which is bloodstained, goddamit). She’ll fill the papers out at home and deliver them to Jamia later. This whole encounter is getting too weird, even for her. “See you at the next council meeting.”

-

Marjorie Burrows does not see Bert at the next council meeting.


	2. Danger Days frerard au

When Frank is younger he thinks Gerard is brilliant, mostly because the older boy has great, soaring ideas and large words that he likes to use in situations that don't really require them. It's only as he grows older that he realizes why his mom looks at Gee weird sometimes- it's because there's something off about Gee. It's hard to explain, the easiest way to put it is that Gee's always been a little odd and he's always asked questions that he probably shouldn't.

When Frank first meets Gerard he's six years old and Gerard is ten. He's slightly soft around the edges, with dark eyes and circles under his eyes that Frank thinks he's a little too young for. At first Frank is enthralled and thrilled by the attention. The fact that an older kid wants to play with him. Even if the older kid is kind of weird.

"D'you wanna play princess?" Gerard asks, bouncing up and down. "I can be the princess and you'll be the prince and you can rescue me from the scary dragon."

Frank stares at him. "There's no dragon," he murmurs, staring at his feet. "I don't know how we'd do that. And you're not a girl."

"You just have to imagine!" Gerard replies with a toothy smile. "We pretend there's a dragon, that's the point. I pretend to be a girl." He sees Frank hesitate and sighs reluctantly. "Or we can get Mikey to play the dragon. He's my little brother."

"Okay," Frank agrees, still a little reluctant. He finds that it's not so hard to pretend that Gerard's a princess because he's got long hair and pretty eyes.

-

A few days later Frank is in his Grade 1 class. They're too young to begin training for the vocation that the machines pick for them, so all they do is the basics, like math and reading. Most of the day is spent staring at papers but after lunch they have a few precious moments of freedom.

"Why don't we play princess?" Frank suggests, staring at his friends. "Jamia can be the princess and Tommy can be the prince and I can be the dragon."

Jamia looks at him weirdly. She frowns, her brown eyes crinkling. "That's weird," she finally says after a few moments. "You're not really a dragon, so how are we supposed to act like that? And I'm not a princess, there aren't any princesses anymore. Or princes."

"We... we could pretend?" Frank offers, biting his lip. Tommy shakes his head and reaches for Jamia's hand to tug her away.

"That's weird," he says. "We don't want to play with you anymore."

Frank's left alone on the playground with nothing to do but stare blankly at the wall. This is the first time that Frank realizes that Gerard is different, and not necessarily the good kind.

-

Battery City is fine, Frank thinks. It's not particularly interesting, but all the citizens are well fed, even if life can get a bit monotonous. Everyone wears the same regulation clothes, has the same haircut and does the same thing, day after day after day. Frank never realized how boring his life was until he met Gee. Gee opened his eyes to color, to life and to freedom. Wild, tempestuous freedom.

Which is the subject of their argument, coincidentally enough.

"Freedom is something we all deserve," Gerard says with a righteous smile on his face. They're lying on the rooftop of the Way residence, staring at the grey sky with disinterest. "And it's something that they don't want us to have in Battery City, because they don't think we're smart enough to have it." Gee always ends his sentences with hint of challenge, daring someone to disagree.

"Freedom is great, but it's unrealistic. People don't know how to deal with it. Did you know that in 2014 they did a study that showed everyone on earth would have enough food to share, the farmers produced enough, they just didn't want to. And that's why people were starving, because someone gave them a freedom to be selfish."

Gee rolls his eyes. "You're so young Frank. Sure, people back then were greedy but we could do it over again. We could remake the world, and we would do it better so everyone got enough food, yeah, but also so people could make art, say what they wanted to, things like that."

Frank frowns. He hates it when Gerard uses his age against him, it's just not fair. "Whatever," he mumbles. "All I know is that freedom is dangerous, and that everyone in Battery City has enough food to eat." He ends with a tone of finality. Frank doesn't like Gerard's ideas anymore, not when they've taken over their friendship to the point where they don't do anything fun anymore, Frank just listens to Gerard rant.

Gerard frowns. "There used to be stars, y'know," he says, staring blankly at the empty, grey sky. "There used to be stars in the sky but then they did something and there's nothing. We used to be something, but now we're nothing, all we do is listen to what they tell us and follow them blindly."

Frank is too tired to argue, too tired to think about who the mysterious they is.

-

It's on the morning Frank's eighteenth birthday that a tired, wild eyed Gerard climbs in through his bedroom window with an offer to steal him from Battery City.

"They lied, Frankie," he hisses, his eyes darting around the room nervously. "They lied to us, there's something outside the city. The zones aren't uninhabited, they've got people and they can do whatever they want and they've got stars Frankie, and you can see the sun. I'm leaving with Mikey and we want you to come with us." By the end of his speech Gee's nose is inches from Frank's, his eyes are great, black holes and Frank can feel his hair tickling his face.

Frank presses his face into his pillow, his mind racing. Gerard's crazy and he thinks he's true and maybe he's right but when it all comes down to it Frank's scared and he doesn't want to leave.

"Stop it Gee," he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. "I'm not going with you, I don't want to."

Gerard halts, a confused look slowly taking over his face. It's never occured to him that maybe Frank doesn't want to go risk his life in some absurd and dangerous fashion. Maybe Frank likes the safety of Battery City.

"Frankie," he whines, shaking Frank's shoulder. "Please?"

Frank rolls over so he's staring right at Gerard, into his black, messy hair and his bottomless eyes. He reaches up to cup Gerard's cheek and just stares at him, really and truly. He sees something he doesn't think he likes. something desperate and a little crazy.

"You're sick. You're so sick and you want to make me sick, but I love being normal and that's how I'm going to stay." Frank spits out the last words with an unintended venom. Gerard flinches, almost like he's been hit. There's a few silent seconds and then he's gone, out the window and that's the last time Frank sees him.

-

Frank's twenty-three and the brightest mind in the Recon center. Everyone says so, Dan, Vic and Tessa all agree. Of course, their opinions don't really matter. It's Veronica Heeley, his boss, who matters and she's said on more than one occasion that he's brilliant.

It's because he can come to conclusions that no one else can, he's gotten information that's aided the capture of sixteen zoners in his first year. Sixteen. Most firsties only get three if their lucky. Of course, the downside is the insane hours he keeps, and the permenant squint from staring at a computer, but still. The pay is good, the built in friends are decent and Frank is satisfied.

Or, at least he should be. Logic dictates that he's happy- he has everything he needs and he's still in his early twenties. But the thing he's never admitted to anyone is that he's good at his job because he can get inside the zoner's head. Take the girl on his tablet right now. She's got white, white hair (a bizarre ritual wherein zoners claim colors or something ridiculous like that) and dark eyes smudged with some kind of makeup. She doesn't know that she's being watched by drones, she doesn't know that they snapped a picture of her and that they're searching for her. Her face is carefree and her freckles spray across her nose like sea spray from the old movies.

There's something wild and beautiful in her expression, and Frank understands it. He wants it, desperately wants it, and that's what allows him to guess their actions, to find them, to decide what will hurt them the most. What will make them crack open and spill all their secrets. Frank regrets not following Gerard and Mikey, but there's nothing to do about it now. He'd never get out of the city. He's trapped himself in a wonderful, souless cage where he's safe and happy, but never too happy and never too safe.

-

"Hurry the fuck up Poison! We don't have all day, come on, they're gonna catch us." Frank's head jerks up from his desk. There's someone outside his door and they're talking in rushed, angry tones. The display of emotion is uncharacteristic- it's not someone from the city, he realizes. What's he supposed to do? He didn't pay attention during the emergency drill, he's going to die, oh god and then he remembers.

_Exit the room and locate the nearest Safe Center. Use any means necessary._

Okay, but how's he supposed to get out, there's a couple nutters outside the door and- the vents. The vents. Frank is small, he can fit through the vents. This is easy, he reassures himself as he wrenches the cheap, regulation plastic cover off. The black emptiness beckons. He hesitates (maybe he should just hide under his desk) but then again, the instructions say to use whatever it takes.

And this is what it takes. Frank shoves his body into the vent, and the second his head goes in he realizes that this is a huge mistake. He's not thin enough to get through a vent. He never should have eaten that donut at lunch. Okay, time to backtrack. Only now he's stuck and the door creaks open, and oh god, he's too young to die.

there's strong arms tugging him out, and he thinks maybe

 


	3. High School Play au frerard (not to be confused with High School Musical frikey)

**Into The Woods and All That Goes Into It**

When Frank Iero gets called into the principal's office for the third time that week the first words that come out of his mouth are, "I didn't do it." Frank's fidgeting with his jeans, tugging at the rips and playing with his lip ring. He can't remember doing anything that might have broken the rules in the past twenty four hours, which by itself is pretty impressive. Frank is known around Westborough High as the ADD kid who will do anything that you dare him to.

"Don't worry," Principal Wang says, shaking her head. "It wasn't that this time. Ms. Bennet wants to talk to you. She says she has a proposition for you."

Frank curses under his breath. He hates Ms. Bennet, his idiotic guidance counselor who has a full folder of theories for why he's the way he is. The truth is, he's technically supposed to be taking Ritalin, but when he takes it everything's slow and boring and he'd much rather be living in the moment that walking around like a zombie from his comic books.

"Frank," Principal Wang adds warningly. "She has an idea to help you, and given your record I would say that it's in your best interest to listen to her."

"Hi all," Ms. Bennet says primly, trying to open the door to the office with one hand and control her folder on frank with the other. "I'm sorry if I'm late to this meeting-" she lowers her voice, "-I had Mikey and my session went over." Frank is tempted to shut the door in her face, but he figures that Principal Wang would probably not approve of that course of action. Instead he settles for watching Ms. Bennet struggle.

She finally gets the door open and slips through, straightening her flowered skirt as she skips to the chair next to him.

"Now, Frankie," Ms. Bennet begins, folding her hands in her lap. "I know- well, we all know- that you've been having some behavioral problems ever since your freshman year." The fact that Frank is now a sophomore, and therefore not that much time has passed seems to escape her. "I believe that I have finally found a solution. You are a good kid Frankie, you just have too much pent up energy, even for your medication. And instead of punishing you for it we must find a way to use it."

Frank has a horrifying vision of himself as the janitor's assistant, trying desperately to scrub a Sharpie drawn dick off of the whiteboard.

"-so Janet and I thought it would be an excellent idea for you to help Bob with the sound for the school play. You mentioned once that you enjoyed music, and being occupied with something may reduce your visits in this office." Frank, relieved he isn't the janitor's new assistant, mumbles something affirmative before realizing what he’s agreed to.

Sitting there in the office, his jeans sticking to the cheap fake leather seat, Frank realizes the gravity of his situation. He's going to be interacting with the theatre nerds. He hates the theatre nerds. He hates the theatre.

Fuck.

-

The last thing Frank notices about the theatre is Gerard Way. The first thing he notices is how tiny the place is.

It's easily half the size of the gym. The stage looks pathetic, the curtains have holes in them and the floor is scuffed by the drama kids and their eccentric footware. Frank taps the door softly and is pleased to see that the sound fills the room clearly and evenly. The size may be shitty but at least the acoustics are good.

Unfortunately the acoustics are so fabulous that his experimental door tapping is louder that he expected, alerting the circle of people on the stage to his presence. Frank waves feebly and silently berates himself for his lack of enthusiasm.

There's an awkward silence for a few seconds before one of the kids stands up. Her hair is neon ['=green and Frank detects a faint Australian accent in her voice. "Hi! I'm Jenna!" she says cheerily. "Are you waiting for a sibling? Practice isn't over until another three hours, you can hang here if you need to wait."

Frank has never regretted taking out his nose and lip piercings more than he is now. They think he's someone's little brother. He has an illegal tattoo! He's not a freshman anymore. Short people aren't short, they're fun sized. Frank wants to die of embarrassment. Maybe he can melt into the ground like that green chick from Wicked.

He shuffles towards the stage, face burning bright red like his mom's marinara sauce. "I'm supposed to help Bob. With the sound. But not because I want to. Um. Yeah."

Jenna's eyes widen as she realizes that Frank is in high school. "I- um-" she sputters, gesturing helplessly around her. "Bob's- er- he quit this morning. Artistic differences. So you're the new sound guy, oh fuck I didn't- well- this is the last week before tech week so we'll be getting all of our costumes and sets together. If you could fix the sound system that'd be great, it's been sputtering in and out. Also, could you please figure out a system to mic everybody, Bob was working on something but then he left so... Gerard- why don't you and Frank get the costume rack out?"

Gerard turns out to be a very twitchy guy hiding behind a tall, skinny kid with glasses. He's wearing all black and his long, black hair is ratty and hanging in his eyes. Frank could be forgiven for thinking that he was one with the (black) wall behind him.

"So," Frank says, shoving his hands into his pockets. "What role do you play?"

Gerard blushes, and it's with a jolt that Frank realizes how pretty he is. The flush is spreading on his pale cheeks like fucking watercolor, something that Frank wasn't sure was humanely possible until today.

"'M th'witch," Gerard mumbles, pushing open one of the many weird looking doors in the dark hallway.

Frank blinks. Gerard, despite being incredibly attractive, seems to have lost the power of speech. "What?"

"I'm the witch," he says again. "Here's the costume rack, let's push it out-"

"Wait- the witch? Isn't that a girl's role?"

Gerard's face is beginning to closely resemble a tomato.

"G- gender roles are outdated  anyway," he says


	4. High School Musical au frikey (notfic!)

East High is, like, the weirdest school ever. Gerard used to come home and tell Mikey all about it- how they have huge posters for the basketball team plastered all over the walls. "They have the players on them," Gerard would say, shaking his head disbelievingly. "Players. High school students all over the walls like superstars. It's fucking weird." Gerard used to hate that school, hate every single person in it, until last year he got the role of the Baker in Into the Woods.

Gerard was forced into auditioning for the play last year after Donna found out about the whole alcohol thing- Elena came over, yelled at Gerard until Gerard was like FINE I'LL DO THE STUPID THING, and lo and behold, he got the lead role. It was like a sudden boost of confidence and suddenly Gerard is different and Mikey feels like he barely knows him anymore.

So it's become really hard to believe that Gerard has crushingly low self esteem. Ever since he got back to school Gerard has been FLAMBOYANT and SASSY and not the usual depressed Gee that Mikey's used to. He even did something to his hair, it used to be long and black and hang in his eyes but now it's shorter and black, and reminds Mikey of Elvis when it's gelled in the right way. Gerard does stuff that's different too and it throws Mikey off.

But Gerard's still in there (the real Gerard, Mikey thinks spitefully sometimes), because every time he fucked up a line during practice or forgot the blocking, he came home and fucking sobbed his eyes out and curled up into a little ball and Mikey had to come down into the basement and hold him and reassure him that he wasn't a waste of space and oxygen.

Today's the first day of high school for Mikey and Gerard's acting like his new self, waving and talking to all of his new friends. He's not ignoring Mikey, per say, but it's his senior year and Mikey's just a freshman and after a few minutes of trailing behind Gerard Mikey gets the point and leaves to try and find some of his friends from middle school. Predictably, he finds exactly 0 because there are two high school options for his district and all of his friends got transferred to the creatively named West High.

Mikey thinks that this entire thing really fucking sucks and that Gerard in general really fucking sucks and for two seconds he totally hates his brother. Then he snaps out of it and feels awful because Gee's fucking awesome too, he's really good at art (even if he never draws at school anymore) and he lets Mikey read all of his comic books and he doesn't mind hanging out Mikey either. Or, at least he used to not mind hanging out with Mikey.

So Mikey's all sad and depressed and he trudges into high school because he has no idea where his locker is and Gerard's too busy talking to Pete and Brian and Lynz to show Mikey around like he promised.

He's walking into the school with his sad face on, emo at, like, 99% when he runs into a short guy with a lip ring holding a basketball. As the guy falls falls his face morphs into this totally ridiculous horrified one, like he's killed someone. Mikey falls on his back, wincing as he lands on his wrist.

"Oh shit!" Mikey says with as much emotion as he can muster. He's lying on the ground, probably too dramatically to maintain any kind of undercover action afterwards but whatever, a traumatic event just happened to him.

"Did I hurt you???" cries the midget in horror (okay so technically isn't a midget but seriously, the guy is short).

"No, I'm fine," Mikey replies, lying on the ground like he's dying. He flaps a hand halfheartedly in the guy's direction, just to assure him that he's okay, but it doesn't seem to be working because the guy looks even more horrified.

"Is your wrist broken?!" he says urgently, already setting down the basketball to poke at Mikey's wrist a few times. "Oh god, it's definitely broken. This is bad. This is so bad."

Mikey shoves Concerned Guy's hands away from him because, omg, he just wants to sit up and breathe a little. "Dude. It's not a big deal," he mumbles, already trying to grab his backpack and escape. "I mean, I kind of ran into you in the first place."

As soon as he hears this the short guy grins and bounces on his toes. He already has his ball back in his hands and all previous concern has disappeared. "Awesome! I'm Frank Iero, I play on the basketball team!" Mikey raises an eyebrow at the guy and waves awkwardly before turning around and slipping into the mass of people flooding into the school. Gerard was right, East High is fucking weird.

-

Homeroom is fucking weirder. Their teacher, Ms. Darbus, is insane. Literally insane. Her hair is grey and frizzy and only barely contained by two sad looking chopsticks that she probably got from Chinese takeout. She wears bright colors like fuchsia and teal and she loves Gerard. Loves him. Adores him. Probably fucking worships him. When she reads of the attendance list and sees that Mikey's last name is Way she flits over immediately and begins gushing about how glad she is that he was in the musical last year, and did Mikey know that he was so talented or was it a complete surprise?

Mikey sinks into his seat until she loses interest in him and moves onto her next target, which is confiscating his classmates phones all while ranting about the importance of the arts and drama.

 


End file.
